Karkemish, Aqaba, Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, Jeddah, Yanbu, and Jbail: are some of the cities that were the center of the life and of the battles against the Ottoman Empire for the British crown and the personal dream of creating an Arab nation of T.E. Lawrence, the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. But there are other little-known…
Tag: middle east
2017: the books you shouldn’t have missed
End of the year: time to look back and see what you have done this 2017. Among the many things, it’s also good to think about the books that have been published and that you should not have missed. And if you have, it’s not a big deal: there is always time to buy a…
Amulets, talismans, and Qur’anic inscriptions
In the last few months, two important museums have organized two distinct exhibitions dedicated to amulets and talismans in the Islamic world. The Metropolitan Museum’s exhibition, Power and Piety: Islamic talismans on the battlefield, showcases a selection of arms and armor decorated with inscriptions and images believed to protect the warriors during battles. A second exhibition, titled…
Twitter and Orientalism: the taste for the exotic in digital era
Orientalism and the 19th century, Orientalism and the exotic taste, Orientalism, England and France, Orientalism and Edward Said… that’s something that everyone interested in Islamic study has read and studied. It is something that some professors (at least, my professors) have always depicted as wrong, misleading, something to overcome: when dealing with Islamic studies you should…
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